Waitress Receives A $3,000 Tip, But She Must Fulfill 3 Conditions First

By: Clayton Browne | July 5, 2019

A man named Mike left a waitress a $3,000 tip on a bill for $43.50 last week.

“This woman had been serving us for almost a year now. She’s a lovely individual, and she talked about how she was served an eviction notice last month,” Mike, who prefers to stay anonymous, noted in an interview. "I just had also been constantly thinking about for quite some time my teacher’s project and this foundation, and I thought it was an appropriate time.”

The foundation in question here is “ReesSpecht Life,” a pay-it-forward organization launched by his eighth-grade science teacher Rich Specht when Specht’s son died at the tender age of 22 months.

Specht and his wife founded a pay-it-forward foundation in gratitude to everyone who helped them after their son Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht’s (nicknamed Rees) death.

"We wanted to pay them back, and no one would take anything in return. We thought, ‘if no one will let us pay it back, we’ll pay it forward,’” Specht explained.

He and his wife have since distributed over 100,000 business cards for the organization worldwide.

"It keeps growing. People keep doing these things. We made our website and we get people to share their stories of what they’ve done,” Specht says. “We unofficially call people who do things ‘Rees’ Pieces,’ and I get excited even when someone buys a coffee for someone else and shares it with us.”

Mike decided it was rime to honor his former teacher.

“I met Mr. Specht in eighth grade -- I was his science student – and he’s an incredible human being. To see something so horrible happen to him ... it doesn’t surprise me that he would start a foundation out of something so horrible that would juts continue to keep good around and to keep wonderful things going,” Mike noted. “It was heartwrenching for me to see it happen. I had been trying to pay it forward and this was just a big opportunity for me to be able to honor someone that’s so wonderful.”

He had three conditions for the waitress to accept the tip:

“1. Go to ReesSpechtLife.com and learn!

2. Don’t let pay it forward end with you.

3. Since it’s about the idea and not about you, or me, if you decide to share this, don’t use either of our names.”

Mike says he chose the amount of $3,000 since Manhattan rents are so high.